


Flying Kittens

by imaginesbyilana



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 16:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16201442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginesbyilana/pseuds/imaginesbyilana
Summary: The reader’s family owns a magic shop. Stiles comes in one day to hide from the rain.





	Flying Kittens

“Damn it Gyzmo!” I yelled, chasing my four-week-old kitten up the slightly crooked, red staircase onto the second floor of the shop–which was more of a balustrade and wasn’t actually part of the shop itself, since the only thing here was the door leading to the apartment my family–all _eleven_ of us–lived in.

My cousin Faith’s pet monkey, Zara, sat on a high shelf above the counter and was looking at my struggle with interest, but she was the only one here, as the shop was currently deserted.

The place was old-looking, with large wooden bookcases serving as shelves for all kinds of knickknacks, potions, and spellbooks. There were a bunch of masks–cursed, but we only sold fake replicas–beneath a glass dome on the counter, and all sorts of herbs hanging from the ceiling. Behind the counter was a door that led to the reading room, where one of my cousins usually sat telling customers their future for eight dollars or up, depending on what their future said.

But today, there was nobody there. My entire family was off to a magic convention in San Francisco, and I had offered to stay behind so the shop could stay open.

It was a welcome breath of slightly-strange-smelling air.

My family consisted of my mother, who was a witch, her four sisters, also witches, and their children, who were all varying degrees of psychic–meaning some of them had more power than others.

Amongst these people was me.

There was absolutely nothing special about me other than the fact that I had grown up believing in the impossible. It was for this reason that I loved being alone in the shop, where the impossible was constantly at my fingertips. Alone in this place, it felt much easier to imagine that I, too, could wield magic of some kind, even if it was just through a wand or even a potion or fairy dust.

However, there were times like these, when one of my family’s many pets–in this case my own–got into trouble and caused havoc.

Gyzmo had gotten into a box of potions that I had yet to put on shelves today and had managed to open a bottle of levitation juice, and now he was flying around the place knocking over anything and everything he passed.

“Dammit, come here!” I yelled, almost falling off the balustrade as I attempted to grab the kitten out of the air. He turned around to look at me in mid-air, pupils large and playful, and I sighed. “You need to stop flying around. If a customer comes in right now I’m screwed.”

Of course, most of our customers were part of the more… let’s say ‘well-informed’ residents of Beacon Hills. The town was filled with magic of all kinds, after all, and that meant there was a market for it.

But there were always the people who just came in for shits and giggles–whom we only sold fake things.

I didn’t want to know what would happen if they came in and saw a cat flying around. That wouldn’t end well.

Plus I would be grounded for life.

“C’mon, kitty, be nice and go play on the floor. You like to fuck up the flying carpet, don’t you?”

Gyzmo just tilted his head to the side, as if he considered what I was saying.

Then he flew over towards one of the higher shelves, which could only be reached by climbing a ladder. On this shelf were wands, which we had put that high because we didn’t want children to reach them.

“Gyzmo, I swear to God,” I said.

Whilst looking at me, he swept his tail across the shelf. I swear this kitten was way too smart to actually be an animal. He knew _exactly_ what he was doing.

All the wands thundered down towards the floor, and I winced when I heard some breaking.

“Gyzmo!”

The door opened.

I froze.

I’d been telling my mom for ages now that we needed a bell above the door, but she wouldn’t hear of it, so the only sound announcing the customer was the scraping as the bottom of the wooden door got caught against the slightly raised wooden floor.

The boy who entered was alone. He quickly closed the door behind him to block out the rain and then rubbed his hands together with his back still towards me. By his attitude, I guessed he’d only come in to escape from the weather for a bit. He wasn’t wearing a jacket.

He turned, looked at the counter, saw nobody there, and then looked up until he found me standing on the balustrade.

He was cute, in a dorky kind of way. I thought I’d probably seen him around school before. In fact, I think I had biology with him. He had pale skin, brown eyes, a buzzcut and a constellation of moles on his cheeks. He was only wearing a T-shirt, and blue hoodie to protect him from the cold. He hadn’t even zipped it up!

Not that it would matter. All his clothes were completely soaked.

And now his first impression of me was that I was staring at him with wide eyes. I mentally prayed for him not to look over at where Gyzmo had now decided to sleep, looking completely normal aside from the fact that he was hovering 6 feet in the air.

“Um, hi,” the boy said.

“Hello,” I said, putting on my most cheerful dealing-with-customers face. “How can I help you today?”

_Don’t look at Gyzmo. Don’t look at Gyzmo. Don’t fucking look at-_

“Oh, I don’t really need anything,” he told me. “I just wanted to get out of the rain for a second.”

“That’s cool,” I said, relaxing. With my suspicion confirmed, there was no need for me to try and sell him anything. I walked towards the stairs and slid downstairs, aware of his eyes following me as I did so. “Aren’t we in Biology together?”

“And English,” he nodded. “And Maths.”

“Huh,” I said, walking to my place behind the counter. “Sorry, I can’t say I know your name.”

“It’s Stiles,” Stiles told me, grinning. “You’re (y/n), right?”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised although I shouldn’t have been. A lot of people knew me. Not for good reasons, mind you, but mostly because I was _the witch kid_. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but there were enough people who knew my name.

“So… um,” Stiles said, looking around the shop. His eyes landed on Zara before they could move on to Gyzmo. I tried not to let out a breath of relief. “Wow! Is that a real monkey?”

“Yes,” I said, automatically smiling at the huge grin that had taken over Stiles’ face. “I can get her down if you wanna pet her?”

“Seriously?” Stiles asked. “Yes!”

I got the ladder that stood against one of the bookshelves and very carefully balanced it against Zara’s shelf. I climbed up, letting her smell my hand and scratching her behind an ear for a bit before I carefully hefted her into my arms. Climbing back down was a bit of a feat, but I managed, turning to Stiles to hold out the monkey towards him.

He looked impressed. “That’s so cool. Who even has a monkey?”

“My mom,” I said. “It’s actually illegal to have a monkey for a pet, but they were gonna put her to sleep at the zoo so my mom went to court and everything and got all the permits.” It had taken a bit of threatening as well. To this day, the judge probably didn’t know how mom had known about the woman he’d assaulted when he was young and drunk.

“That’s so cool,” Stiles said again, although I could tell from his tone that he didn’t mean it any less than he had the first time. His eyes were wide and there was a small smile playing around his mouth. He was letting Zara smell his hand the way he’d seen me do.

Zara pushed her head into it.

“She likes you,” I decided. “She usually tries to hit strangers.” Zara looked completely comfortable, though, which was how I knew Stiles was good people. “Do you want to hold her?”

“Hell yes!” Stiles said excitedly, accepting her when I carefully handed Zara over. He wrapped his arms around her carefully, but there was no need to be worried that he would drop her, because Zara grabbed the collar of his hoodie and clung onto him, a peaceful expression on her face. “What’s her name?”

“Zara. She really likes you,” I said, smiling. “She might not let you put her down.”

Stiles smiled, seeming proud. “I can’t buy the monkey, can I?”

“Unfortunately not. My mom would kill me. We have plushies, though.” The kids always liked them.

Stiles laughed. “I guess I’ll take one of those.”

I nodded, going back behind the counter to grab one from the box we kept there. I didn’t ring it up, instead just placing it on the counter until he was ready to take it.

“How much is it?”

“Free. Don’t tell anyone.” I winked.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Hey, um,” Stiles said, seeming suddenly nervous. “When… when do you get off?”

“The shop closes in…” I looked at one of the cuckoo’s clocks, a tall one decorated with wooden birds. “Oh. Ten minutes ago.”

“So do you wanna maybe… do something?” Stiles asked me, pressing his lips together immediately after he asked. He looked like he was bracing himself for rejection. He looked adorable, still holding Zara and all.

“Sure!” I said. Then looked out one of the shop windows. “Maybe not outside, though. I don’t really feel like being rained on.”

“Oh, yeah, that sounds reasonable. So… here?”

“I mean, we could watch a movie? There’s a perfectly good TV upstairs.” It felt dangerous, somehow, asking an outsider into the apartment. Dangerous and exciting.

“Okay, yeah, that sounds fun,” Stiles agreed, grinning from ear to ear again.

He handed Zara to me, and I placed her back on her shelf, where she went to go sleep in the bed she’d made there out of towels. Stiles grabbed his plushie, but as I was about to lead him upstairs, Gyzmo came dropping out of the air, right into my arms.

Somehow, I’d known to catch him.

The potion had worn off.

“What the-?!” Stiles exclaimed, looking up to see where the kitten could have come from.

But he had fallen in a way that very clearly showed he couldn’t have jumped off of a shelf.

“So,” I said, chuckling nervously. “Um. Funny story…”

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr.


End file.
